Recap: DeFi Week of June 1🦄

Hello Defiers! Hope you’re having a great weekend.

Summing up: This week was all about scaling with OMG Network launching a long-awaited, plasma-based Layer 2 solution, which enables more processing power for Ethereum apps. Together with the launch, OMG announced Bitfinex will be processing Tether transactions through the network. DeversiFi launched a Dex based on the zkStark scaling technology, which it says allows for ~9k transactions per second. Compound Finance gave up full control of governance to COMP token holders, while in other governance token news, Balancer started issuing BAL. Dharma users are now able to buy ETH directly on the wallet, and Aave users can now borrow against Uniswap liquidity.

Breaking from Defiant contributors: Lucas Campbell’s report on the state of Dexes showed this year’s volume already surpassed 2019 volume, while Matthieu Jobbe Duval showed USDC collateral in MakerDAO has collapsed by more than 80% as Dai yields fell relative to USDC rates. This week’s interview was with Opyn cofounder Alexis Gauba, who built the first decentralized options market to make DeFi safer and traditionally complicated financial instruments more accessible to everyone.

And more!

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Interview

"There's the Opportunity to Make Really Complex Financial Instruments More Accessible”: Alexis Gauba

Alexis Gauba, is the cofounder of Opyn, the first decentralized options market. These instruments give investors a tool to protect against market volatility and Black Swan events, like hacks, bank runs, and big price crashes. In DeFi the risk is especially high, which explains why Opyn has taken off since its February launch. If DeFi ends up overtaking centralized finance, we could be witnessing the rebirth of a market that’s worth trillion of dollars in traditional finance. The difference is that this time, everyone can access it, and anyone can build their own financial instruments on open sourced protocols. Alexis shares more about how Opyn was born, the project’s traction, the next markets the team plans to add and what innovative projects devs are building on top of the protocol. She also gives a peak at what Opyn V2 might look like.

🎙Listen to the interview in this week’s podcast episode here:

Thursday

Dives

• The Case of the Missing USDC: Something very interesting has happened in the last 10 days that has gotten very little coverage: USDC’s size as a collateral asset in MakerDAO’s CDPs (Vaults) has collapsed more than 80%.

Bytes

• DeversiFi is Latest Scalable Dex to Launch on Ethereum: DeversiFi wants to bring centralized exchange performance to decentralized trading. The platform, which relaunched Wednesday as DeversiFi 2.0, says it’s the first to integrate StarkWare’s zkSTARK technology, which enables it to process thousands of transactions per second.
• Compound’s New Step Towards Trustless Governance: Compound got a little closer to becoming fully trustless. The lending system’s team abdicated the protocol Guardian Functionality on Monday.
• How to Buy ETH in Under 60 Seconds with Dharma: The Dharma wallet just unveiled the ability to buy ETH thanks to an integration with Uniswap. Watch DeFi_Dad’s tutorial on how.
• On-Chain Markets Update by IntoTheBlock: This Week: The Coinbase Effect. The so-called “Coinbase Effect” is back. Cryptocurrencies recently listed for trading on Coinbase seen significant returns.

Tuesday

Dives

• OMG, Ethereum Scaling is Here: Ethereum scaling solution OMG Network —previously OmiseGo— launched after three years of development and announced Bitfinex will be using the system for its USDT stablecoin right off the gate.
• Balancer Starts Issuing BAL Governance Token: DeFi power users now have a new platform to put their capital to work in exchange for governance rights. Balancer started issuing BAL tokens to liquidity providers Monday.

Bytes

• mStable is the Newest Money Lego on Ethereum: mStable launched on the Ethereum mainnet on Friday. The protocol includes a native stable coin, a savings option, and the ability to swap between assets.
• pTokens Bitcoin Bridge Releases Decentralization Plan: pTokens, an interoperable bridge to port top cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to Ethereum, released a framework for decentralization through the introduction of a pNetwork DAO and PNT governance tokens.
• Aave Allows Users to Borrow Against Uniswap Liquidity: Aave released a Uniswap Market - allowing users to borrow against Uniswap V1 Liquidity Provider Tokens as collateral.
• DeFi777 Wants to Simplify Trades to Single Transactions: DeFi777, a prototype set of contracts using the ERC-777 token standard, aims to simplify DeFi protocols by turning more complex actions into simple token transfers.

Monday

• State of Ethereum Dexes; Open and Trustless Wins the Race: Dexes are taking on more and more volume and quickly gaining ground versus centralized counterparts. This means earnings are rising too, and while the numbers are small compared to Cexes, in the decentralized world, anyone can benefit.

💜Community Love💜

Thanking all the amazing Defiers for the support and love this week (and always)!

pTokens 🦜 @pTokens_ioCheck us out in today's @DefiantNews! Be sure to subscribe for the best DeFi coverage.🏋️‍♀️ For more on #pNetwork: 👉 bit.ly/3gOwhH2

7:46 PM ∙ Jun 2, 202014Likes7Retweets

Alex Masmej ☄️ @AlexMasmej@DeFi_Dad @sassal0x @SetProtocol Here’s my little DeFi Saturday story 1. I read @DefiantNews @opyn_ interview 2. I realized that I have $100 to redeem on Opyn 3. I want to put them on @tokensets 4. Gas costs is $20-30 each time, not worth it3:07 PM ∙ Jun 6, 2020

DeFi Dad - defidad.eth @DeFi_Dad📰And subscribe to @DefiantNews at thedefiant.substack.com. 🔥@CamiRusso and her team of contributors teach me something daily for $100 per year, or just 70 DAI per year if paid with @UnlockProtocol here: newsletter.unlock-protocol.com/?title=The%20D…5:31 PM ∙ Jun 4, 20203Likes1Retweet

Minion@TokenInsight @minionabct@mattysino On top of everyone suggested, @DeribitInsights on options/derivatives @KaikoData for specific detailed analysis on market data. @CoinSharesCo report on mining @DefiantNews for DeFi2:13 AM ∙ Jun 3, 2020

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About the founder: I’m Camila Russo, a financial journalist writing a book on Ethereum with Harper Collins. (Pre-order The Infinite Machine here). I was previously at Bloomberg News in New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires covering markets. I’ve extensively covered crypto and finance, and now I’m diving into DeFi, the intersection of the two.